Ukraine launched its deepest-ever attack into Russia, targeting two Arctic gas condensate facilities more than 3,000km (1,865 miles) from its border, on Wednesday, signalling that Ukraine has further developed its military capabilities as the Russia-Ukraine war continues through its fifth year. Unconfirmed videos circulating on social media show large clouds of thick, dark smoke and fire at the Novy Urengoy plant in western Siberia, recorded from a distance. Dmitry Artyukhov, the governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug region, wrote on Telegram that the drone attacks had been intercepted and “debris from the drone caused a fire upon impact”.
There have been no reports of deaths or injuries. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has dramatically increased its capacity for the mass production of low-cost drones and has more recently been specifically targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure and logistical hubs. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the latest long-range attack “completely justified” on social media.
It came just days after special United States envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visited Moscow and Kyiv with new proposals to end the war, although no specific details were shared on the new proposals. While attacks on Russia’s and Ukraine’s capitals were halted during the three-day visit earlier this week, they immediately resumed following their departure. But what does this new, long-range capability on Ukraine’s side mean for the next phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war?
The Ukrainian Armed Forces says it hit two critical Russian gas processing plants, in Novy Urengoy and Purovsky district, with FP-1 drones produced by Fire Point, a Ukrainian company specialising in the production of long-range drones. The pink FP-1 drone – Fire Point FP-1 UAV – is about 6 metres (20ft) wide and can travel at 140-180km (87-112 miles) per hour. It costs less than $60,000 to produce each drone, an amount that is considered low.
The furthest an FP-1 drone had travelled before the Novy Urengoy attack was in July, when it hit an oil refinery in the city of Omsk in southwestern Siberia, about 2,500km (1,550 miles) from the border with Ukraine. The Kremlin’s envoy to the Urals, Artem Zhoga, said Wednesday’s attack by Ukraine was the first to reach the Arctic. The targets were two Russian gas processing plants in the Novy Urengoy and Purovsky districts of Yamalo-Nenets.
The Yamalo-Nenets region hosts about 80 percent of Russia’s natural gas production and two-thirds of its gas reserves, as well as 13 percent of the country’s oil reserves. Gas reserves in this region stand at 26.5 trillion cubic metres; global gas needs stand at about 4.2 trillion cubic metres per year. Novy Urengoy is known as the gas capital of Russia due to its vital production for the Russian gas and oil industry.
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